Homebrew Digest Monday, 11 November 1996 Number 2271
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FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Mike Donald, Digest Janitor-in-training
Thanks to Rob Gardner for making the digest happen!
Contents:
[none] (postmaster at swpe06.sw.lucent.com)
Announcement: Dutch Winterbeer competition ((E. Bouman))
Re: Cleaning corny kegs (Jim Larsen)
Kegging (Andrew Quinzani)
Dissolved Oxygen ((A. J. deLange))
Douglas A Moller <damoller at odin.thor.net> goof (rjlee at mmm.com)
insulating converted kegs ("Bryan L. Gros")
RE: Malt extract / Education / Dry-hopped dunkle ((George De Piro))
Re:New listener intro (GARY MCCARTHY)
Re: Kegging recommendations ("David R. Burley")
Re:Dry Hopping (Cuchulain Libby)
nitrogen oxide ("Adam Back")
Re: Wyeast 1098 and some questions about La Chouffe yeast (Dave Mercer)
Party Pig ("Kevin Delaere")
Wort Chilling ((LaBorde, Ronald))
Kegging (John Wilkinson)
Problems with Mash Temp. (Peter Eaton)
a horrid thought ("Robert DeNeefe")
Beer Color ((George J Fix))
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Homebrew Digest Monday, 11 November 1996 Number 2270
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Mike Donald, Digest Janitor-in-training
Thanks to Rob Gardner for making the digest happen!
Contents:
A Automated Digest???? (shane at cais.cais.com)
Kegging ("John P. Galligan")
Interest in non-RIMS Sparging Systems in Use or Being Contemplated (Rod
Schlabach)
re: Foxx beverage ("bob rogers")
CO2 Bottles, Mash schedule ("David Root")
cleaning corny kegs (Douglas A Moller)
Re: Oxygenation Cognitative Dissonance, Sake ("David R. Burley")
Re: 1098 and stuck ferment (Joe Rolfe)
RE:CO2 tank (The Holders)
Oops RE:CO2 tank (The Holders)
Re: Amber malt exract (Derek Lyons)
Re: What is 'Amber' malt extrat (Derek Lyons)
Sake and Koji (u-brew-it)
Spargless, singlevessel, archi_RIMS ((David Hill))
Re:HSA ((Nigel Townsend))
1997 National Bay Area Brewoff (Bob Jones)
Children / Saftey / brewery ((David Hill))
FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO LINGA'S MAG (francogalian at pinos.com)
A complement, a few questions, and a funny one... ("Tim M. Dugan")
Return to table of contents
From: ebouman at gak.nl (E. Bouman)
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 11:56:35 GMT
Subject: Announcement: Dutch Winterbeer competition
Remark: This message is in Dutch, so if you do not read Dutch and do
not want to get a headache don't read any further!
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
- ------------------------------
Aan alle Nederlandse Amateur Bierbrouwers.
De Hoofddorpse Amateur Bierbrouwers vereniging <I><B>'t Wort
Wat</B></I> zal op 19 januari een 1e Nederlandskampioenschap
WINTERBIER organiseren.
Wilt U meedoen aan deze wedstrijd met uw eigen gebrouwen winterbier
dan kunt voor meer informatie en inschrijven terecht op:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~betonh/programma.html
of
http://www.tip.nl/users/e.bouman/wort.htm
Erik Bouman,
Aktiviteiten Commissie 't Wort Wat
Return to table of contents
From: Jim Larsen <jal at oasis.novia.net>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 06:25:19 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Cleaning corny kegs
Doug Moller is unable to get his big arm into the lttle corny key opening
and would like to know how to clean kegs.
I've been using a (clean/dxedicated) toilet brush for the least few years.
Not only this mean I need only reach in to the elbow, my hand never
touches the cleaning solution (TSP), eliminating the need for gloves (as
long as I'm careful).
Jim Larsen
Return to table of contents
From: Andrew Quinzani <quinzani at mdc.net>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 08:02:45 -0500
Subject: Kegging
From: "John P. Galligan" <galligan at erols.com>
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 22:50:00 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Kegging
Can somebody provide me with simple instructions on how to keg beer. I have
tried on various occasions and seem to get only a lot of foam, no
carbonation in the beeer itself. I think my problem must be somehow
associated with the length of dispensing hose and the internal keg pressure.
I sometimes wish I had the quality I used to know in my bottled beer,
however tedious it was to do the bottling thing. Please help.....my wife
thinks I have just wasted a lot of money on my kegging gear. I have assured
her that the next batch will be as good as our old bottled efforts.
John, There are many factors and I have experanced them all just as you are
now...
First thing to keep in mind is that the C0-2 "absorbsion" rate depends
entirely on the temp.
of the beer. If you are storeing the keg and Co-2 bottle inside the fridge
(make damm sure the Co-2 bottle is ALWAYS standing UP or else you will get
liquid Co-2 in the beer and the tank will empty in no time as well as VERY
foamy beer)
I run around 8-12 lbs pressure with both tanks (Co-2 and keg) in the fridge.
I have friends that run 20 lbs+ for both outside the fridge and running
through a cold plate. This is what I will be doing soon as I just got a 6
circut cold plate.
The main thing is that when you hook up the CO-2 to the keg is to boost the
pressure to around 20 lbs and shake it hard for 15-20 minutes to spread the
CO-2 into the beer, then lower the pressure, assuming you have already
cooled it down to the 45 degrees or whatever your fridge is. It will still
take a few days for the CO-2 to give you the results you want but
remember....relax and have a homebrew!
Hope this helps.
-=Q=-
"Q" Brew Brewery...Home of Hairy Chest Ale
- ------------------------------------------------------------
quinzani at mdc.net
Return to table of contents
From: ajdel at mindspring.com (A. J. deLange)
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 13:22:32 -0500
Subject: Dissolved Oxygen
I spent the day with the DO meter and have a few things to report which
relate to the ongoing discussions of aeration etc. As these results are
from single quick experiments do not attribute to them the same credibility
you would to a well conducted series of experiments. Remember that the
unbiased estimate of the variance of a single measurement is infinite!
All measurements were made with an Orion model 860 meter with polarographic
probe which was recalibrated frequently throughout the experiments.
1. Aeration by pouring between buckets: I deoxygenated about 2 gallons of
water and then poured them back and forth between a couple of stainless
steel stockpots with the following results:
Number of pours % Saturation
0 1
1 33
2 60
3 75
4 85
5 90
6 92
7 94
8 95
10 96
Pours were from about counter height to the floor. The message is clear.
The first few pours (5) get you most of the way there after which the
approach to saturation is assymptotic.
2.How quickly dissolved O2 escapes from wort (boy was I wrong about this!):
A 2.5 gallon carboy was filled about half full of tap water and O2 sparged
through this with a stainless steel airstone to 200% of saturation. The carboy
was then left undistrubed and the DO level checked periodically with the
following results:
time % Sat Temp., C
0 200 15.8
4 min 197
12 195 15.9
16 194
27 193 16.1
This really makes sense. The space in the carboy over the water was filled
with O2 which could only escape through the mouth of the carboy (which was
not sealed) and as there were no drafts in the room it apparently stayed
where it was. With the space over the water containing a high percentage of
oxygen there is little partial pressure difference and little oxygen flowed
out of the water.
It was clear that this physical containment would hold O2 in the water for
a long time so the water was carefully poured into a small stockpot. This
resulted in loss of O2 to 175% of saturation. The pot was left undisturbed
and the DO level checked periodically:
time % sat Temp, C
0 175 16.3
8 min 175 16.3
16 171 16.4
27 169
47 167 16.7
1:17 166 16.8
3:55 158 17.6
These data indicate that overoxygenated wort will stay overoxygenated until
the yeast consume the oxygen or it escapes some other way (splashing or
spraying would allow it to escape fast). Note that in my experience
properly pitched worts seem to reach 0 DO within about half an hour of
aeration to about 150%. Evidently the yeast consume the O2.
3. Oxygen toxicity. About 800 ml of approximately 6.5 P wort was prepared
from DME and dosed with a small amount of yeast nutrient. This wort was
sparged to 35 mg/L with pure O2 through a stainless steel airstone and then
innoculated with Wyeast London (#1028) to about 13,000 cells per ml. DO
level was monitored constantly and more oxygen supplied whenever the level
dropped below 30 mg/L to return to 35 mg/L. Cell counts were taken
periodically:
t Cells/ml temp, C
0 1.3E5 25.7
1 hr 1.4E5
2 hr 1.4e5
4:27 2.9E5
5:25 3.7E5 25.4
6:25 8.0E5
At this poin the wort was brought to 35 mg/L, a water lock was installed on
the flask and the PI toddled off to bed. This morning (13 hours into the
experiment) the DO was at 21.3 mg/L and the cell count 3E6. One hour later
(14 hrs) the DO level had dropped to 14.6 mg/L and the cell count was at
6.6E6/mL.
Conclusion: The yeast survived very high DO levels (above 30 mg/L) for the
first 6 hours of the experiment and were able to progress to the point of
doubling every hour or so at these levels. This growth rate continued at
levels below 35 mg/L but above 21 mg/L for the next 6.5 hours at which
point the yeast indicated their health by consuming 7 mg/L of oxygen and
doubling their count in 1 hour. At this point I must terminate this
experiment and get off to work.
4. Is O2 solubility reduced in wort RE that in water? Mark published somes
data which indicate this but in looking back over my notes I find that my
experience has been different. I have, on various occasions, brought worts
of 6.6, 14 and even 20 P to 100% oxygen content by sparging with air.
A. J. deLange
- - Numquam in dubio, saepe in errore.
Please Note New e-mail Address
Return to table of contents
From: rjlee at mmm.com
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 08:03:40 -0600
Subject: Douglas A Moller <damoller at odin.thor.net> goof
Seems that Mr. Moller intended that his sig line
was to be a URL, but that his mailer thought he
should include the text of it instead.
One should note that this URL is taking names when
hit.. Not a very ethical thing to do..
Return to table of contents
From: "Bryan L. Gros" <grosbl at ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 08:22:06 -0600 (CST)
Subject: insulating converted kegs
What's the best way to insulate a converted sankey keg so that it
can still be heated on the propane burner, but the temperature won't
drop like a rock during the 1 hr. sparge?
Thanks.
- Bryan
grosbl at ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
Nashville, TN
Return to table of contents
From: George_De_Piro at berlex.com (George De Piro)
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 10:34:28 -0800
Subject: RE: Malt extract / Education / Dry-hopped dunkle
Hi all!
Derek talks about duplicating amber malt extract by using light malt
extract plus crystal malt.
Keep in mind that amber malt extract does not necessarily contain ANY
crystal malt (though all brands might, you don't know this). You can
make amber wort with any pale malt plus roasted grains in small
amounts to achieve an amber color. You could make amber wort by using
100% Munich malt, etc.
As an extract brewer, you don't know what the masher did! That's what
makes brewing from grain so cool: you know what went into your beer!
It would be great if the extract makers put ingredients and mash
schedules on the package, but they don't, so you do not know what
you're getting. How do you even know that they don't change their
ingredients from time to time (depending on the availability of
certain grains)?
But maybe I'm being elitist...
--------------------------
Tim Dugan writes in with a bit from his local paper:
--
"It takes a while to get used to Guinness. This beer from an Irish =
family of brewers is heavy and good in winter; but the first pint is
the =
hardest to get down. Stout is a heavy dark-brown beer, somewhat like
=
Guinness, but with less calories. Ale is a red beer, made from malt
and =
hops. Lager is a yellow regular beer that has been aged for several =
months. Shandy is a mix of lemonade and beer and is popular in hot =
weather."
--
I find this sad and disturbing, not humorous. Think about how many
people read that and thought that they learned something about beer!
People tend to believe what they read. The beer in this country (USA)
would be a lot better, cheaper, and more diverse if people actually
knew something about it.
A letter to the paper is in order.
-------------------
Johnboy asks about dry hopping his Dunkle. Don't do it! A dunkle
won't meet the style if it has that much hop aroma!
If you want to make a hoppy, dark lager, just throw the pellets of
your choice into the secondary. They will settle in ~ two weeks and
you can siphon the beer off the junk. Just don't call it a Munich
Dunkle.
Sorry, I'm on a "truth in labeling" kick.
Have fun!
George De Piro (Nyack, NY)
Return to table of contents
From: GARY MCCARTHY <mccarthy at IOMEGA.COM>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 08:59:18 -0700
Subject: Re:New listener intro
** Confidential **
** High Priority **
Mike:
Howdy and welcome to the HBD! I was interested in your comment:
>My favorite drinking beer is a golden malty
>german wheat beer, complex rich and rewarding.
Well, how about a recipe then? Hopefully an all-grain? I must
confess that I have only made one Wheat, out of Millers book (I think
the Wiezen) , and I thought it was bland. Some friends who claim to
know what good Hefe-Wiezen tastes like say it is a very good Wheat,
but it tastes fairly bland to me.
>dont go pro
Why's that, Mike? Tell us some stories!
Gary McCarthy in SLC
Were you spending my cash on some piece of trash that you picked up
at the mall? Twenty Questions by someone?
Return to table of contents
From: "David R. Burley" <103164.3202 at CompuServe.COM>
Date: 11 Nov 96 11:08:29 EST
Subject: Re: Kegging recommendations
> From: "John P. Galligan" <galligan at erols.com>
>
> Can somebody provide me with simple instructions on how to keg beer. I have
> tried on various occasions and seem to get only a lot of foam, no
> carbonation in the beeer itself.
John,
Your kegging effort should be equal or better than your bottling efforts.
Here's how I do it:
1) Make up a Krausening starter of 1-2 Tlb of Hopped malt extract plus 4 oz of
corn sugar ( I suppose sucrose would be OK?), 12 oz water, boil and cool,
Remove
small amount of yeast with some beer from the bottom of the secondary with a
siphon. pitch yeast and beer into the starter. When it is foaming (high
Krausen) usually 12 hrs,
Immediately ( before the sugar in the Krausening starter gerts used up):
2) Flush keg with CO2 through the "OUT" side, add the fermenting starter and
the
beer from your secondary.
3) Hold at room temperature ( or 50 F for lagers) until the pressure stabilizes
( about a week to 2 weeks).
4) refrigerate at low to mid-forties ( if you are lagering, after a week move
to
35F lagering fridge or lower temp of fridge by 5 - 8 deg/day to 32 -35F)
5) Wait a week or more, testing occasionally. Kegs being taller may take longer
to clarify than bottles. If you find that the beer is getting clearer as you
get, say, 1/3 or more into the keg, wait longer the next time.
6) Delivery pressure should be 10 -15 psig into a tall glass or pitcher for the
first few glasses.
7) Always deliver with the spigot *wide open* to minimize foaming and to get
correct condition of the beer in the glass. Try this with your current beers.
My delivery hose is 3 feet long, but it is irrelevant how long the hose is,
except the longer the hose the more foam you will deliver due to heating of the
beer if the hose isn't cooled. Even in a cooled hose, beer in the line will get
foamy and deliver a spurt of foam at first. After the first delivery in a close
sequence of deliveries, I don't think it makes any difference. Just don't go
crazy.
8) The beer itself may not be as carbonated in the glass as you are used to,
using the above quantities, especially if you are making American lager types,
but my beers have an excellent, but not excesssive head and a fine bead typical
or better than commercially tapped beers. The more highly carbonated the beer,
the colder it will have to be at delivery to reduce foaming. Never carbonate at
such a level that the delivery temperature will produce more than 15psig or you
will always have foam and no condition in your beer until you reduce the keg
pressure by delivering a mountain of foam. Try cooling your current beers to
33-35F. Deliver the beer with no CO2 input until the delivery condition
satisfies you, then use 10 - 15 psig as a delivery pressure.
Start here and make changes later after you have experience. Good Luck!
P.S. If your wife washed, filled and capped the bottles, she might like kegging
better.
- ---------------------------------------------------------
Keep on brewin'
Dave Burley
Kinnelon, NJ 07405
103164.3202 at compuserve.com
Return to table of contents
From: Cuchulain Libby <hogan at connecti.com>
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 03:53:14 -0500
Subject: Re:Dry Hopping
As we celebrate this Veteran's Day:
JohnBoy in #2270 asks about dry hopping and it just so happens I'm taste
testing an APA I bottled last week (it still amazes me every time I try
a homebrew, just how good homemade beer is) that I dry hopped with a 1/2
0z. or so of willamette leafs. I used a hop bag but forgot to weigh it
down so I took one of my busted racking canes, put a notch in it near an
end and snagged it on the bag (next time I'll tie the bag on with a
trash twistie). Come bottling day I pulled the cane out and voila I had
no trouble getting the hop bag out of the 'boy. A previous poster warned
of making sure the cane stays under the stopper and not plugging the
airlock. I just shoved the jagged edge of the cane into the rubber.
Good Night JohnBoy,
Cuchulain
Apprentice Brewer
Hollering Woman Creek Brewery and Shoe Repair
San Antonio, Texas
hogan at connecti.com
Return to table of contents
From: "Adam Back" <Adam.T.Back-1 at tc.umn.edu>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 10:24:45
Subject: nitrogen oxide
I like many of you are using a corny kegging system, and I'd like to
dispense some stouts with a mix of co2 and nitrous oxide, and I read some
weeks ago about a brewer who used a mix of the two and hels theem both in
the same 5# tank.
My questions are these:
1. What % mix of co2 and Nitrus oxide should I use? and
2. Where can I buy a mixture of the gases?
Thanks for your imput,
Adam Back
Return to table of contents
From: Dave Mercer <dmercer at path.org>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 09:08:39 -0800
Subject: Re: Wyeast 1098 and some questions about La Chouffe yeast
Regarding a question about a stuck fermentation with 1098, Joe responded
that there were two likely explanations: under pitching and cool
temperature. I cast my vote for the latter as the most likely of the two
(barring a competing infection).
I use 1098 more than any other yeast and most often for all-grain IPAs with
fairly high O.G. (e.g. 1.065). I usually pitch slurry from a 1.5L starter
for a 5 gal batch, but I have on rare occasion pitched directly from a smack
pack and never had a problem except for slow starts. In fact, I used it on
my first all-grain IPA (this was also the first time I used any liquid
yeast) and I did one of those stupid brewer tricks: Not having a clue how to
open and empty a swollen smack pack, I held the pack over the carboy, corner
down, and cut the corner with scissors. Well, I'd guess that 95% of the
contents sprayed in my face and only a few errant drops managed to make it
into the carboy. It took about 3 days for any activity, and I was about to
buy another pack, when slowly but surely things started to happen and by day
4 I had an active fermentation (not on my face, in my beer). This beer
finished a little high (FG 1.020) but tasted great and won a silver in a
pretty competitive local competition.
Last Spring (hbd 2018) I posted a question to the collective about a
barleywine I had pitched directly on top of a 1098 yeast cake. I was
concerned because it took off immediately and burned through high kreusen in
about 3 days, but then stopped at a very high gravity. Then about 2-3 weeks
later, at the time I posted my question, it seemed to find new life and
happily went into a second active fermentation. It finished in the high 20's
(dropping around 75 points). At the time Al K. speculated that this could be
the result of multiple strains in 1098, with the more alcohol tolerant ones
kicking in later (but 3 weeks later?) That may have explained it, although
I'll accept Joe's report that Wyeast says that 1098 is a single strain. In
retrospect, I think it was more likely a slight increase in fermentation
temperatures as we moved into April. I have noticed that this yeast likes
temperatures in the 68-70 range. In my experience, at that temperature it
will drop a 1.065 IPA down to 1.016 in about 10 days.
Now, about La Chouffe: I have been feeding a starter for about a month now,
I keep meaning to brew, and something keeps getting in the way, so every
five or six days I drain the spent wort and throw some fresh wort on top of
the yeast (which is getting pretty thick on the bottom of my 2L starter flask).
Question 1: Can I keep doing this or should I bite the bullet and
refrigerate what I've got until I have the wherewithall to actually brew my
beer?
Question 2: I've seen fermentation temperatures all over the map for Belgian
ale yeasts and remember a lot of talk in this forum a few years ago about
some of the temperature-dependent esters produced by La Chouffe yeast, but
I've done a search and can't find anything about what the actual preferred
temperatures are. What's the story? Jim?
Dave M. in Seattle
Return to table of contents
From: "Kevin Delaere" <KDelaere at gkcopc.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 10:37:33 -0500
Subject: Party Pig
I got a Party Pig keg for my birthday. Does anyone have any
experience/comments on using it?
TIA
Kevin J. Delaere
KDelaere at GKCOPC.com
Return to table of contents
From: rlabor at lsumc.edu (LaBorde, Ronald)
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 11:54:51 -0600
Subject: Wort Chilling
>From: Jim Thomas <jim.thomas at telops.gte.com>
>
>In my arrangement, when I get ready to chill, I'll dump 10-20 pounds
>of ice in my Gott cooler (cleaned out from the mash), top with
>water. Then connect the outlet on the cooler to the inlet on the
>pump, connect the outlet from the pump to the inlet on the chiller
>and the outlet from the chiller back into the cooler. (The knee bone
>connected to the leg bone...)
>
>Seems to me this might work pretty well. Anybody out there do this?
>At the least it'll save on water.
Yes, that's exactly what I have been doing. The pump is from a pet store
and is called a "Power Head". It costs about $25.00 and has become very
usefull arround the homebrewery.
When I chill, first, I use the garden hose tap water for about 15 minutes,
then I switch to the pump-ice water recirculation just as Jim described. I
have installed a male hose thread adapter to the end of the pump outlet hose
which is about 4 foot long. When switching, I just replace the garden hose
with the pump hose and recirculate for another 10 to 15 minutes, after which
the wort is well below 70 degrees F. I use this for 10 and 5 gal batches
and it seems to take about half an hour total. I use a large tray of ice
cubes from the fridge. For a 10 gal batch, I have an additional saved bag
of ice cubes ready to add when needed.
When using the garden hose, I discharge into a 32 gal plastic garbage can,
use the water for clean up and rinsing. After it cools, (the water) the
pump output can now be attached to the input end of a garden hose, placed
into the 32 gal water supply, and sprinkle the plants with the water.
Oh! I didn't mention, the pump is a submersible pump, you just dunk it into
the water, power cord and all, with a supplied inlet filter screen and an
outlet port to which the output hose is attached.
If you haven't guessed by now, I will tell you that I have become quite fond
of this little pump. It's cheap, easy to obtain, and made for continuous
duty use. A great buy.
Another use for this pump:
I am trying to devise an easy method of controlling my fermentation
temperatures. I have one chest freezer which is mostly at 32F. for
laggering. So I really need another fridge for fermenting temperatures.
Some day I will probably get another one. But untill then, I substitute my
time and attention to get around this. I am in the design stage with changes
every day as I get more ideas (Some come in my sleep!). I have a rectangular
picnic cooler that the carboy fits into. I would place some 2 liter ice
bottles and water into it to get the temps down and this worked but I could
not really control the temperature easily. First, I started using my
counterflow chiller in the picnic cooler water and using my little "Power
Head" pump to recirculate. I had a smaller picnic cooler into which was
placed the pump, the ice, and the water.
I am using a thermostat to turn the pump on and off - just the same type of
setup that I use to controll my freezer. Then, suddenly it came to me that
I could just recirculate the water and the immersion chiller was not needed.
I use a large siphon hose from the fermenter cooler to the smaller cooler
that contains the pump and ice water. The temperature probe is in the large
cooler.
So the design at this stage is large cooler and small cooler side by side
with a siphon hose to keep the water level the same. The pump in the
smaller cooler pumps cold water to the larger cooler until the thermostat
turns it off. The thermostat is a standard (is there such a thing?)
electronic house heat and cooling thermostat. The thermostat is meant to be
used with 24 volt control transformers and relays. It has a small
thermistor sensor inside that I removed and soldered on to a three foot wire
and placed the probe into a length of quater inch tubing, bent in half with
the sensor in the middle, and now I have a waterproof temperature remote
probe. The thermostat can be set from the front panel daaahh.. So I put a
24 volt transformer and 2 relays into a box and wired up the thermostat and
relays, one for heat, and one for cooling. When the outside temperature is
below the fermentation temperature, I plug the pump into the heater relay
outlet connection, and move the pump from the ice water into the large
picnic cooler. I do not need a heater because the pump draws 20 watts -- so
the PUMP IS THE HEATER!
Comments?
Ron
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From: John Wilkinson <jwilkins at imtn.tpd.dsccc.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 12:28:13 -0600
Subject: Kegging
John Galligan asked about carbonating kegged beer.
A method that works very well for me is to chill the keg, pressurize to 15-20
psi,
and roll back and forth on the floor (the keg, that is) with the gas in fitting
up. After rolling 3 or 4 minutes I put the keg back in the fridge. I usually
serve at ~ 8psi through 3/16 I.D. serving lines 2 or 3 feet long and through
door mounted spigots. When drawing beer it fills the glass fairly slowly
without
much foaming. As the glass fills the CO2 comes out of solution and forms the
head. The bubbles in the beer are reminiscent of Guiness on tap. The
carbonation
seems to get better over time, with smaller bubbles.
I find this method quick, easy, and effective.
John Wilkinson - Grapevine, Texas - jwilkins at imtn.dsccc.com
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From: Peter Eaton <Peter_Eaton at zd.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 13:30:59 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Problems with Mash Temp.
I made my first all-grain batch on Sunday: A basic pale ale using 8 lbs English
two-row and 1 lb 40L crystal. I'm using a picnic cooler mash tun with a CPVC
manifold, and was shooting for a 60 minute mash at 152F. I mashed-in w/9 qts.
170F water and added another quart at 212F to stabilize at 152F. However, when I
checked back on the temp. after 10 min, it had gone down to 138 and I added at
least 4 more quarts at 212F to try and get the temp back up. Feeling desperate,
and no longer concerned with style, I removed 3 qts of the thinnest part of the
mash and brought it to a boil and returned it to the mash...no good, still
138F. After roundly cursing the thermometer maker, I did the decoction-thing
again, and got the temp up to 145F. In the end, after 60 min an iodine test
showed complete conversion, so I gave it 30 more minutes to be safe and went
ahead and sparged the damn thing.
The thermometer is a glass bulb type...and if you carefully hold a lighter
flame some distance under it, it will go to 180F or more.
So...what happened? I certainly got the conversion (or a conversion) but
exactly what was produced at those temps? I didn't estimate the amount of wort
I'd have after the boil well, and had to add 1.5 gallons H2O to get 5 in the
carboy...and after mixing the hell out of it I had OG: 1.038. I pitched a 1 qt
starter Wyeast American Ale (I forget the number) and it was goin' great guns
twelve hours later.
Basically, I am wondering 1) Is that damn thermometer defective? (Regardless,
I'm getting a dial-type this week) and 2) Did I actually get the right sugars
and what-not at such a low temp?
Thanks for any info or suggestions...this had better be good beer.
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From: "Robert DeNeefe" <rdeneefe at compassnet.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 12:53:29 -0600
Subject: a horrid thought
This weekend I adjusted the pH of my sparge water for the first time by
testing with tri-band pH strips and adding lactic acid. I'm sitting at
my office today and I realize that I dipped the pH strips into the
sparge water to get a reading. Did I end up leeching some rather nasty
chemicals into my water? ACK! This is a rather horrid though,
especially after I battled a stuck sparge for what seemed like hours.
Will the resulting beer be safe to drink, or did I make a really stupid
mistake?
Robert
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From: gjfix at utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 96 13:10:32 -0600
Subject: Beer Color
My interest in this subject started with a joint project with
Roger Breiss whose objective was the development of a simple
yet reasonably accurate method for estimating the color of beer
and wort. We were motivated by the success visual methods have
had in small scale brewing using Lovibond glasses. Our idea was
to get an equivalent of the latter by suitably diluting a standard
with water. There were 11 beers at our disposal for which we had
accurate color data. The darkest was Michelob Dark at 17 deg. Lov.,
and it was chosen as our standard. The standard was then diluted
with water until we got a color match with an equal volume of one
the test beers. This yielded 11 data points from 17 deg down to
nearly 2 deg. I then did a cubic spline fit to get a continuous
curve from 2 to 17 deg. Lov. This curve was then carefully checked
by comparison with real Lovibond glasses, and it was found that the
errors in it were uniformly under 1%. This curve and a procedure
for using it appeared in 1988 in Zymurgy (Vol.11, No.3).
Several years after this Dennis Davidson came up with the excellent
idea of taking photographs of samples after various stages of dilution.
He gave me a copy of his color card at the AHA meeting in Milwaukee in'92.
We promptly checked it with both dilution and with Lovibond glasses, and
found that his photographs were identical to the diluted samples.
Moreover, simple interpolation between his pictures yielded errors no
more than 5%, and most often they were much less than that. A few
years ago Siebels also did independent tests and came to the same
conclusion. Given the somewhat secondary role color plays in beer
evaluation I feel the 95% accuracy provided by the color chart
is more than adequate, and hence solves the color problem.
Yet, out of the blue in private but very polite e-mail I got a
message asserting my color data contained serious errors, and the dilution
curve was fundamentally flawed. The reasons cited were similar to
those that came up in the correspondence following Daniel's article
in BT. They are essentially the following:
1. Beer's law shows that the dilution law should be a straight line.
Since it is not it therefore be flawed.
2. Extrapolation of the color data beyond 17 deg gave contradictions.
This also indicates that there are errors in the data.
3. The type of nonlinearity seen in the dilution curve is exactly
what comes from background interference in spectrophotometric measurements.
Had I done my spectrophotometry with greater care I would have gotten
a straight line.
Since the original data was obtained by a visual procedure, and checked
by an independent visual procedure, I feel it is fair to call point 3
a non sequitur. Points 1 and 2 appear to me to come a misinterpretation
of my curve as some sort of universal dilution curve for a simple
color dye. That it is not. It is nothing more than the pattern by
which a specfic mixture of carbohydrates, proteins, melanoidins and
other heterocyclic compounds that is Mich Dark losses color as water
is added to it. As a consequence point 2 makes no sense whatsoever.
As for point 1, I fail to see how Beer's Law can be applied to a
situation involving dilution where absolutely no account is made for
what is being diluted. I can see how it could be used locally to
predict incremental changes in color with incremental additions of
water, but I fail to see how this shows the global curve must be
a straight line. This is particularly problematic for dark beers.
They tend to have a broad spectrum of heterocyclics ranging from
simple melanoidins to more complex structures. Each one of these
groups appear to have different color potentials. Interestingly,
for pale beers (say below 4 deg Lov) the heterocyclic structure
simplifies to the point that these beers are well approximated
as simple color dyes. Here linearity is expected and indeed seen
in the data.
In an attempt to move the discussion away from the endless conjectures
and speculation that was generated after Daniel's article, I sent
specific requests via private e-mail for specific numerical evidence
that my data was in error. I did receive one immediate response, but
that was for dilution of an artificial medium totally unlike beer or
Mich Dark. A second round of requests was sent out over a year ago, and
I have to get a response. Given that and the number of independent
tests that have been done in the 8 yrs. the data has been in the
public domain, i feel more comfortable that ever with the assertion
made in the '88 article that the errors in the data are under 1%.
If one accepts that then whatever properties the dilution curve
for Mich Dark may have, being a straight line is not one of them.
Cheers!
George Fix
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